


The Shiniest Meat Bicycle

by Lex0905



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25433734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lex0905/pseuds/Lex0905
Summary: Krieg meets Maya at the Hyperion train station and follows her. Gaige has a crush on the weird assassin, Zer0.Basically follows the game story, almost to a T, but then delves into some of the stuff I think would happen between missions.I'll try to include each of the missions in the summary of each chapter.PSA, I'm terrible at uploading at a regular pace, but Imma try my best. :)
Relationships: Gaige/Zer0 (Borderlands), Krieg/Maya (Borderlands)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> This is the introduction, obvi, so this is when Krieg meets Maya in the release trailer for Krieg. Then the intro to the game with Short Change Hero playing, THEN I took some bits and pieces out from the Game of the Year trailer and applied it to the intro as well. 
> 
> I have a Spotify playlist I listen to that has some of the intro songs and others that I feel like fit the game. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5DjXZzcWUsRT1c7X3jNIqX?si=k_6oBa87TK21L_D14EfyPQ

A bandit stared up at a guy that had been hung from some metal thing that was sticking out of the ground. Multiple metal things were sticking out of the ground, and they were all curved; looked like they were the remnants of a spaceship or something.

_ I don’t know the dead man _ , a tumbleweed flew past,  _ Probably didn’t deserve what he got _ , the bandit started walking forward,  _ Doesn’t make him special, though. All kinds of people die out here; the innocent _ , the bandit didn’t see a particular psycho playing with his buzzaxe on a boulder,  _ and the not so innocent. _

The psycho hadn’t noticed the bandit, either, until now. He stopped hitting the rock with his axe and jumped down. If I’m lucky, he hasn’t noticed me yet, The psycho began to slowly meander after the bandit, throwing his buzzaxe and catching it again. _ I want to warn him, I wanna tell him to run, to hide, to get out of sight so I won’t have to kill him.  _ The psycho threw the axe up but this time didn’t catch it _. That’s what I want to say _ , he gets the weapon from the ground and stands up straight, staring at the bandit and twitching his head to the side. _ What actually comes out of my mouth is _ : “I HAVE THE SHINIEST MEAT BICYCLE!” The psycho sprints towards the bandit, jumping up off of a make-shift fence made of scrap metal and landing axe first into the bandit’s face.  _ Huh, close enough. _

The psycho moved on from the bandit site and began walking on train tracks.  _ This is me. _ “I’M READY FOR A SPINE TINGLER.” He convulsed his body as he spoke.  _ Yeah, great. Hey, remember back when we were sane? _ “SHE CAN TASTE THE BLOODY HATRED.” _ Guess not. Still can’t hear me, can you? Little voice your head trying to remind you of a time where we could go hours, days even, without screaming about our desire to ride bicycles made of meat? _ The tracks began to shake, _ I don’t even remember.  _

A train was coming and the psycho tried to leap out of the way, but still got clipped by the speeding hunk of metal. The shield absorbed the brunt of the damage but it still took some health off of the psycho. 

He landed face down in the dust, shaking his head and leaning on his side as his shield regenerated. As he looked forward, he saw that he was at the station; the train was picking someone up.  _ Oh, god. She’s armed with a Maliwan SMG, she’s a Vault Hunter, she’s a siren warrior who can kill me with her brain. _ He admired her blue tattoos running up and down the left side of her body, then her royal blue hair, then the yellow and black bodysuit with cargo pants, then her face. 

“What the hell- is that a psycho?” her crisp voice rang throughout the desert.

_ She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. _ He was sitting up now, tilting his head like a skag would, trying to get a better judgment of the woman from 20 meters away. 

The train came to a stop now and the psycho stood up.  _ Tell her she’s as gorgeous as a thousand sunsets, tell her you need her help, tell her to rescue you and care for you, and whatever you do; do not scream the word ‘poop’ at the top of your lungs! _ “I’M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!” The siren stared at him for a moment, then her look of confusion turned to determination as she jumped down off the platform and began to shoot at him.

His shoulders slumped as he looked at the ground. _ It’s over idiot, you’re gonna die here and now and the last words out of your mouth with have been ‘poop train’ _ . He began to zig-zag to avoid the Maliwan shock rounds, then eventually landed behind a rock.

The siren began reloading and was so focused on the psycho that she didn’t notice the new threats behind her. _ Oh, great! Now the rats are arriving. _ She finished reloading and began shooting at the psycho again.  _ Turn around, siren, turn around or you’re dead! _ The rats scampered closer as he watched from his cover.  _ Tell her to look back, now! _ “STRIP THE FLESH!” _ No, listen to me _ _ “SALT THE WOUND!”  _ Yeah, great, we’ll salt all the wounds later, but right now if you don’t listen to me, she’s gonna die and it’s gonna be your fault! _ The psycho shook his head, clearly contemplating, “ARRGH, TURN AROUND, PRETTY LADY!” he stood up from his cover and threw his buzzaxe, barely a foot away from the siren’s head and landed into a rat right behind her. He then ran up and grabbed the spinning axe out of the rat’s face, jumping on its shoulders. 

The siren stopped firing, staring in confusion again. 

“AGRHAHAHA!” he cut another rat in half then up-swung at another, finally landing into a rat thief’s face, “ARGHAHA, THAT’S THE STUFF.” He looked at another rat that was already terrified, with his hands in front of his face, “I’M GONNA PUT MY PAIN INTO YOUR SOUL!” the rat whimpered and fainted. 

The psycho stood looking around at his work, then glanced back at the siren as if for approval. A scream sounded from behind him, followed by a low hum of power. He turned towards the scream to find the vermin trapped in a blue-ish/purple orb. He realized it was the siren’s power holding the rat in place and as the rat continued screaming, the psycho turned towards the woman. She walked forward, just looking at him. The psycho turned back towards the rat and jumped up, using his axe to chop into the rat’s head.

He pulled his axe from the recently dead rat as the woman walked up to him, still keeping a defensive stance. He was turned away from her.  _ Now, tell her thank you. Tell her that because of her we might actually, one day, be able to act like a normal person again. _ He turned around quickly, pointing to the siren. “I POWDERED MY COCKATIEL FOR THE RIBCAGE SLAUGHTER.” The psycho still emphasized his gestures in twitchy movements.

The siren stared at him, frowning slightly, then smiled as she put her hand on her hip. The psycho almost looked confused when she smiled.  _ Huh, close enough! _

“Are you, uh, getting on the train, too?” the siren asked, not really expecting a coherent answer.

He stared back at her, thinking. _ Okay, just say ‘yes’. This is our opportunity to act normal, we might never get this chance again. _ Krieg just grunted.

The siren took his answer as a yes, “Okay, well, uhm, I’m Maya,” she put a hand to her chest, then brought it out in front of her as if to say: “And you are?”

_ Come on, man, we can do this. Just say it normally _ . The psycho shook his head, twitching all the while, “KrieeEEG. NO MORE STRANGER DANGER.” Krieg threw his arms into the air.

“Alright, Krieg, well, we had better get on this train before it takes off without us.” she beckoned toward the train entrance prying the rusty metal door open. 

Maya stepped inside, but the doors closed immediately, leaving Krieg on the platform. She turned to look out the window on the door, realizing what had happened and she tried to get the door open once more, beckoning for Krieg to help her, but the train started to move. He saw a ladder at the back of the cart and ran to it, out of Maya’s limited view from the window.

~~~~~

She assumed the psycho had taken off after a skag or something and ditched the train. Maya dropped her head slightly, he seemed like an interesting character to know.

She turned away from the window and saw four others standing around her, “Uh, hi.” she waved.

“Lookin’ for a Vault, huh?” the Commando winked at the siren, “Name’s Axton, I’m thinkin’ we could pair up, yeah,?” 

The siren crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, “Nice try, but I’m looking for answers, not a boyfriend,”(Ironic, isn’t it?)

A ginger girl popped up from her spot on one of the crates, “Yeah, dude, she definitely doesn’t seem into you,” the girl shot a look at the military man, “I’m Gaige, and I have a lovely robot named DeathTrap” She threw her normal hand out to the siren, keeping her robotic limb to her hip.

“Maya,”

“Aye, por favor, call me Salvador.” the Truxican nodded his head and crossed his arms.

The Commando slouched onto the crate Gaige had been sitting on, looking bitter when the tall guy in black armor displayed a ‘0’ on his faceplate. They all looked a bit confused, but then shrugged as the train cart rumbled more than it should’ve.

They glanced out the window to see a few wheels roll by. “Bandit technical,” Axton said, matter-of-factly. They looked back to a sign they had originally ignored; “Welcome, Vault Hunters” it said, with a picture of the infamous Handsome Jack smiling and a Hyperion logo at the bottom left. The sign fell to reveal a second sign; “To Your Doom (nothing personal)” This Handsome Jack is now smirking and instead of the blue and yellow of the first sign, this one was red with flames coming from the bottom.

The group didn’t have too much time to consider the sign as Hyperion Loader Bots started constructing themselves. Each of the Vault Hunters ran to separate positions. Zer0 jumped up to the roof, Salvador opened the door and clung to the outside of the train. Maya ran to the front of the cart(away from the Bots) and Gaige simply digistructed DT and pulled out a pistol. 

Axton analyzed the scene for just a moment too long because the Loaders decided he was the best target. He ran back and threw his turret to the roof of the cart. “Say hello to the Missus!” The turret rained fire on the bots, coming from the back, but then the front of the train busted open with new Loaders. He pulled out his Maliwan rocket launcher and fired at the new subjects.

Maya covered her face from the blast of the launcher, then phaselocked the next Bot walking towards her. She smiled as she crushed the metal in corrosion and threw it out the side of the train.

The bot nearly missed Salvador, he hung on with one arm then tossed himself back into the cart, pulling out two assault rifles and firing, laughing all the while.

“Domo Arigato, suck-ass!” Gaige reloaded her corrosive pistol as DeathTrap ran through the Bots, left and right. A Loader limb got thrown at her and she accidentally shot through the ceiling. Which, fortunately, hit some combat engineers who were rushing towards Zer0.

With no weapons, Zer0 turned around and simply waited for the engineer to punch him. When he did, his fist went directly through his chest. The hologram shimmered and disappeared. The real Zer0 showed up behind them and shoved his sword through the first engineer, then launched up and over the both of them, kicking the second engineer into the katana still sticking out of the first. Zer0 rolled back onto his feet and displayed a ‘:)’ on his faceplate. 

All the Hyperion Bots and engineers in that cart were dead, so the group congregated ready to bust down the next door and destroy the rest of the Hyperion trash.

When the door opened, they were greeted with a room full of explosives and a dummy of Handsome Jack in a spinny chair with springs and dynamite popping out. A pre-recorded message played: “It’s cute that y’all think you’re the heroes of this little adventure, but you’re not. Welcome to Pandora, Kiddos!” a timer beeped and all the dynamite went off. 

It was all blinding white and ringing as they crashed into the snowy tundra. They tumbled inside the cart for probably 30 seconds before it finally halted. Maya was the first to emerge from the wreckage, followed by Axton, Zer0, Gaige, and Salvador. 

They caught their breath for all of three seconds before they realized that the train was actually packed full of Hyperion troopers. 

Maya jumped down and phaselocked the closest Loader Bot, then pulled her pistol out on the engineer that was charging her, killing him with a headshot. While the Loader was still suspended in Maya’s phase, Zer0 jumped and landed on the loader, shoving his sword through the middle of the bot’s “face” then sliced his way through more loaders and engineers. Maya, however, heard a familiar voice through the explosions and gunshots.

“PAIN PARTY ON THE RISE,” the psycho rampaged through multiple loaders and engineers, confusing the hell out of the other Vault Hunters.

Axton had perched himself at the top of one of the cargo carts and was picking off Hyperion one by one, keeping a slight eye on the overgrown psycho that was ripping through Hyperions soldiers. There were too many behind him and he tossed a grenade and jumped off of his spot, sliding under a loader and shooting its underside and back. He and Zer0 stood back to back as more and more of them came. The psycho broke up the circle closing in around them, though. 

Laughing maniacally and mainly aiming for the engineers, Krieg ripped through about a quarter of the enclosing circle, giving Axton and Zer0 a chance. Somewhere in the distance, they heard, “Me and DT are gonna bitch slap ya!”, with a chuckle, they went back to shooting bots.

DT sliced and diced through Hyperion soldiers as Gaige just wildly shot with an SMG, which absolutely ricocheted off any surface and landed critical shots and maybe, sometimes hit Krieg as he was running around.

“SHOOT ME TIL YOU LOVE ME!” Krieg yelled after one of those shots did hit him.

“Sorry!” Gaige shouted after the man, doing a double-take to make sure she actually saw a very tall psycho fighting alongside them. By the time everyone was done beating up Hyperion slaves, they just about passed out. They all had managed to find an okay-ish train cart to pile up in and rest.

It seemed that they really didn’t mind the psycho.


	2. Hello Claptrap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Vault Hunters meet the ever so annoying Claptrap as you do in the beginning of the game. Mostly snarky remarks and just advancing through the snowy tundra.
> 
> Includes the missions: My First Gun and Blindsided(the one where you get the eye back from Knuckle Dragger)

A rather annoying voice woke them all up, “Great -- more dead Vault Hunters. Handsome Jack’s been busy.” A CL4P-TP bot was trying to dig a hole. Someone mumbled something and the unit turned towards them, “Wait a minute -- you guys aren’t dead! YES! Now I can get off this glacier! Claptrap your metaphorical ship has finally come in!”

The group groggily stood up, staring at the bot, “Allow me to introduce myself -- I am a CL4P-TP steward bot, but my friends call me Claptrap! Or they would if any of them were still alive. Or had existed in the first place!”

“Wow, that’s depressing,” Gaige muttered.

Claptrap disregarded - or didn’t hear - the girl’s remark and kept on talking, “Now -- come, come, friends. Let’s get you inside!” The bot hurried away in what looked like the CL4P-TP version of skipping.

“Oh, boy,” Maya shook her head and before taking of after that robot, she glanced at the psycho, “Oh, right, guys, this is Krieg,” she motioned to the hulking man, “I guess he followed me from the train platform,”

Gaige scrutinized the man with one hand on her chin and the other underneath her elbow, “Seems legit,” her eyes stopped squinting at the man and her face became bubbly again, “Nice to meetcha, Krieg, I’m Gaige!”

The other Vault Hunters muttered their names, as they were still absolutely exhausted.

“Man, this is GREAT! Now that I’ve finally met some mighty Vault Hunters, I can finally join the resistance in Sanctuary, take vengeance against Jack for killing my product line, and repair my central processor so I stop thinking out loud! I wonder what it’s like to have a belly button.”

Gaige spoke up this time, “You know Claptrap, I could probably fix your central processor. I mean, I built my own frickin’ robot from scrap!” 

“As much as I’m sure ripping into my metaphorical skull is fun, we should find a professional!” 

“Ugh,” Gaige crossed her arms.

All echos began to pick up an AI frequency and a video of a woman with black hair began to speak, “I’ll explain everything soon, but know this -- you’re alive for a reason, and I am here to help you.”

“Who’s the lady?” Salvador asked no one in particular.

“ARGH, SHUT UP LITTLE MAN. NO MORE LITTLE MEAT.” Krieg yelled, smacking himself in the face.

“I guess you don’t know.” she nodded at Krieg, “I don’t think any of us do,” Maya responded.

They all made it to a makeshift house in a chunk of ice and Claptrap ‘clapped’, “Well done! Your ability to walk short distances without dying will be Handsome Jack’s downfall!”

Claptrap went up to the door, “Aaaand open!” a scanner type thing looked at Claptrap and decided it was okay, “Just a little added security. Gotta keep those bullymongs at bay or they’ll rip your eyes out!”

“That just sounds like unfortunate foreshadowing,” Axton finally spoke. 

A few chuckled, “Eyes like grapes. DELICIOUS!” Krieg blurted out when they reached the inside of Claptrap’s place. It had a large furnace and random furniture with dead bodies and disassembled CL4P-TP units all over.

“No, Krieg, we’re not eating anyone’s eyes. Apparently, that’s bullymong territory,” Gaige patted the giant’s shoulder, warranting a weird stare from the psycho, “Sorry, buddy, I won’t touch you then,”

“No one will play with me?!” Krieg genuinely sounded sad at that moment.

“We’ll play! Just later, okay?” Gaige got along swimmingly with the not so sane man, which somewhat concerned Maya and Axton.

“Sorry about the mess! Everything Jack kills, he dumps here -- bandits, Vault Hunters, CL4P-TP units… if I sounded pleased about this, it’s only because my programmers made this my default tone of voice! I’m actually quite depressed!”

Gaige snickered, “Hey, me too, except no programmers, just public school,”

“Now, the creatures around here are dangerous -- none more than this bullymong named Knuckle Dragger -- killed everyone I know. Anywho, I keep a pistol in the cabinet over there for emergencies, but in HERE we should be pretty safe!” A loud growl echoed through the cave and Claptrap shrunk down into his shell, yelping.

Everyone instinctively looked at Krieg, “STOP LOOKING AT ME!”

The group obliged and averted their gaze to the next noise: ice breaking at the top of Claptrap’s place. What burst through must’ve been the bullymong, Knuckle Dragger, that the steward bot had warned them about. He swung down into the room on the furnace chimney then grabbed Claptrap by the arm, then flipped him over to grab his wheel. Just as Knuckle Dragger took hold of Claptrap’s wheel, he ripped out his eye.

“MY EYE! AHHHHH!” the unit’s robotic voice filled the cavern when he got dropped to the ground. Knuckle Dragger jumped back through the hole in the roof he made.

The group somewhat jumped into action, and a few shots got fired towards the hole, but mostly, people just stared at the steward bot. He righted himself and started blindly making his way around his place with ‘oof’s and ‘ahh’s. 

“The gun,” Claptrap whimpered, “The gun in the cabinet,”

Gaige rolled her eyes and walked over to the cabinet, “Okay, Claptrap, we’ll get the gun,” when the cabinet door popped open, a few insta-health viles and a little bit of ammo came out with the standard pistol. Gaige picked it up and put it in her storage dock, but then she looked to the rest of the group, “Unless anyone else wants it?” 

A few muttered no’s and heads turned towards the bot again, who was looking for the door.

“Once upon a time, four Vault Hunters changed Pandora forever. But, their time has passed -- thanks to Handsome Jack, Pandora needs a new hero. I know that hero is you.” the AI that spoke to them before resounded over their echos.

They all looked at each other and somewhat ignored Claptrap’s rambling, they seemed to ask each other if this lady was serious. Them? Heroes? 

“Aside from the excruciating pain, this is GREAT! I’ve been waiting for mighty Vault Hunters to help me reach Sanctuary!” Claptrap tripped and fell again, “I will be your wise leader, and YOU shall be my fearsome minions! Ahahaha!” He made his way through a specific steward bot sized hole, then opened up a larger scrap door for the group to go through.

They all assumed they would be looking for Claptrap’s eye, which wouldn’t be too bad. They wiped out an entire Hyperion train full of Loaders and Engineers earlier! But the group stayed silent; they were still exhausted from that fight, even with the healing hypos.

“Great! Just let me get this door open and we’ll hunt ourselves a bullymong!” Claptrap fiddled around on a keyboard and the door in front of him, “Onward, seeing-eye minions! Let me know if I’m gonna run into anything!” Again, the group stayed silent and Claptrap almost immediately ran into an ice block. A few snickers erupted as they watched the comical robot try to figure his way around. “I’ll just assume you didn’t see that.”

A few more Claptrap falls later, and the group came across some smaller bullymongs and they dispatched them quickly. They ran through an old shipping crate and they ended up in the middle of a clearing as the infamous Handsome Jack came over their echos.

“Hey, kiddo. Jack here, President of Hyperion? Let me- Lemme explain how things work here. Vault Hunter shows up, Vault Hunter looks for new vault, Vault Hunter gets killed. By me. Y’see, you seein’ the problem here? You’re still alive. So, if you could do me a favor and just off yourself, that’d be great. Thanks, pumpkin.”

Maya crossed her arms, “That Jack is really something, isn’t he?” she looked around, Axton nodded in agreement, Zer0 put a thumbs up, Gaige was almost mimicking Maya’s stance as she nodded. Salvador and Krieg were in their own world, muttering nonsense to each other. 

“Reminds me of my battalion chief,” Axton muttered.

“Reminds me of that stupid rich bitch Marcy Holloway,” Gaige hissed.

“Huh, I guess we all have an individual Jack in our lives,” Maya glanced at Zer0.

“We all have demons / I suppose Jack is ours now / He’ll die horribly.” Zer0’s mask made it impossible to see what he was really thinking, but Maya felt a strong sense of hate coming off of him, so she guessed that yeah, he did have his own Jack at some point. 

“PRETTY MAN WILL FEEL THE PURPLE NASTY.” so, Krieg finally decided to come back to us.

“Slag?” Salvador asked.

“PURPLE NASTY.” Krieg nodded vehemently. Salvador was about to respond when Claptrap yelled.

“Oh! My eye just switched back on! I see tough-looking minions and an incredibly handsome robot -- which means whoever has my eye…” Claptrap’s voice went from confident to scared and he shrunk in his shell again as Knuckle Dragger made his second appearance, “is very close!”

This time, the group of Vault Hunters actually did jump into action, shooting mercilessly at the giant bullymong with the robot’s eye around its neck. What a bullymong would want a robot eye necklace for, no one was sure.

After a few shots, Knuckle Dragger picked up a scrapped runner and threw it at the group. Luckily it missed everyone, but it definitely pissed off the other smaller bullymongs nearby as they ran out ready to eat someone’s intestines.

Knuckle Dragger went directly for the loudest person which was, of course, Krieg, “I CAN’T WAIT TO TASTE YOUR LUNGS!” he yelled at the beast, charging forward with his buzzaxe already swinging. The two met and there was blood everywhere and no one knew who it was from.

“Oh, God! They’re coming outta the wall-sphincters!” How Claptrap knew what the battlefield looked like was a mystery.

“Super robot fun time!” Gaige digistructed DT and they went right to work going after the monglets, Axton helping slightly.

With his turret down, Axton jumped up on a ledge and began launching off rockets towards brats, slowing down a bit when a slinger started throwing chunks of ice at him. He pulled out an assault rifle and shot a few rounds into the ice, breaking it down into smaller pieces.

Axton was about to launch another rocket at the brat he was working on, but it got sniped from above by a sly Zer0. Zer0 then critically hit one of the slingers that was focusing on Maya and Salvador. 

While Salvador was raining bullets into a crowd of varying bullymongs, Maya stood behind him and picked up a few monglets in a flaming, corrosive, and slag filled phaselock. Closing her fist, the bullymongs essentially exploded and covered the surrounding foe in whatever element.

The slag especially helped Salvador on his mission to ruin every living thing that wasn’t them. The explosion also managed to help Krieg out a bit, as Knuckle Dragger got distracted by the burning sensation on his back fur.

While Knuckle Dragger turned around, Krieg landed the final blow and took off its head, “Ohhh, yeES. BATHE IN THE MEAT CHUNKS!” he picked up the bullymongs head, “HOW CAN I SNAP YOUR NECK IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE?”

Claptrap must’ve heard the commotion die down, “Woohoo! If you would retrieve my eye for me. Oh, and I apologize for saying ‘wall sphincters’. I say that a lot when I’m frightened,” 

“Whew!” Gaige wiped some blood and/or sweat off of her forehead and went to pick up the eye, “This this looks preeeetty mangled, Claptrap, are you sure your ‘professional’ can fix this?” Maya trotted over and glanced at the busted machinery.

Claptrap apparently had a habit of ignoring Gaige, “Got my eye? Great! Now we just gotta find someone to put it back in me. As much as I’m sure YOU’D like to jam your fist into my skull, optic surgery is best left to the professionals. My pal Hammerlock in Liar’s Berg can fix me up! Allons-y!” Claptrap began to feel his way around the mountain and came across a big Hyperion door that looked like it led to where they wanted to go.

“I might shove my fist into your skull without a reason,” Axton muttered, following the bot.

“Liar’s Berg is on the other side of this Hyperion barge. What say we cut through it, chum?”

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Gaige muttered, standing next to Axton who let out a soft chuckle.

“Ha! This door is Hyperion tech -- child’s play. Aaaaaaaaand open!” the bot threw his arms up and nothing happened for a moment, then it scanned Claptrap.

“Intruders detected. Locking door.” the box shut down another layer of metal over the door.

“Oh, for the love of-”

“Lemme get that for ya,” The AI said, unlocking the door for the six Vault Hunters, “Executing phase shift.”

“At least someone is helpful,” Axton said back to Gaige, the two of them snickering.

“You’re welcome! Perks of being an artificial intelligence. I’m networked into almost everything on this planet.” the AI allowed a chest to rise from the middle of the room, “It’s a long way to sanctuary -- please take whatever you need for the journey ahead.”

“ArrRGH! FIRST THE LITTLE MAN, NOW THE LITTLE LADY?” Krieg shook his head and was about to pound it into his axe but Maya caught his arm.

“Hey there, big guy.” Maya still clutched hard onto the psycho’s arm, “It’ll be okay, she’s here to help,”

Krieg looked at her with his one eye, and for a moment, she saw something other than pure rage and insanity. He quickly looked away, but he kept quiet and looked a bit more relaxed; at least he wasn’t gonna smack his face, Maya decided.

They made their way into the barge and it was stocked full of Hyperion ammo and one shotgun, which Krieg suddenly made googly eyes for, “LOOK at that pungent death stick,” he growled, not moving but staring ferociously at the shotgun.

“Do you want it, Krieg?” Gaige skipped up to him, picking up the gun on the way then holding it out to him. The psycho looked cautiously at Gaige, then the shotgun and back at Gaige before snatching the weapon and holding it close to his chest like it was a baby.

Maya and Gaige chuckled at the sight as they all picked up the rest of the ammo they could carry.

“Let me know when you’re ready to meet with Sir Hammerlock, minion.” Claptrap rolled back and forth on his wheel, dancing, waiting for the crew.

They all looked around at each other, nodding at the unasked question, that they were ready to go.

“Okay, let’s get out of this miserable ice chunk,” Axton grunted towards the robot who then scurried off towards the other control panel leading to Liar’s Berg. He began pushing what seemed like random buttons, but then the door opened to another glacial front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was it? Please let me know, I'd love to hear what you think! :)


	3. Lair's Berg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Sir Hammerlock! Gaige has mechanical arm issues, Maya and Krieg make a room almost to the brim filled with mattresses so they can finally rest. 
> 
> This is a much longer chapter this time, I doubt all of my chapters will be consistently this long, but I dunno at this point. We shall see! 
> 
> Includes the mission: Blindsided and Cleaning up the Berg

“Keep your wits about you, minion,” Claptrap started, “this glacier’s run by a bandit named Captain Flynt. The jerk kept me as his torture plaything for a few months. We played games, like “dodge the blowtorch” and “don’t get dunked into the pool of acid”! I was really good at the first one.”

Axton and Salvador sighed, “I’m so tired of the cold, amigos.” Salvador scratched his head, “When can we go to someplace tropical, eh?”

“Well, right now we gotta deal with this, but then we’re off to Sanctuary, I guess,” Maya looked somewhat confident in her answer, “Maybe it’ll be warmer there,”

“MEAT DOESN’T KNOW THE COLD.” 

“I suppose not,” Gaige shivered, breathing into her one hand, trying to warm it up, “You don’t have a metal body part that doesn’t warm up!”

Maya started walking towards the edge of the cliff, “Really? You haven’t put in some kind of metal heater?”

“Well, I mean, that’s a good idea, but should the heater get broken somehow, it could burn up my arm!” Gaige thought for a moment, “The titanium alloy isn't much of a heat conductor, but maybe I could put in an iron rod with a heater that connected to the plates of-” she started muttering to herself and opened up the EchoNet to look for some supplies, Maya assumed.

She shrugged to herself and looked across the landscape, noting the bullymongs that lingered around the entrance of the town. The town itself looked deserted save for some bandits. Maya furrowed her brows and pulled out a sniper, looking at the town that most definitely had been massacred by said bandits.

Their Echos sparked to life, “Attention, people of Pandora! Handsome Jack here, offering a million bucks to whomever brings me the heads of the Vault Hunters that just arrived in Liar’s Berg.” Jack’s droning voice radiating through the town, “Oh, and I’m still offering a reward for the mass-murdering leader of the Crimson Raiders. Good hunting, bandits!”

“Most interesting / The town is full of bandits / Hardly challenging.” Zer0 was also looking at the town with his sniper.

“Yeah, but we have to deal with the bullymongs first.” Axton pointed almost directly down.

“WHO WANTS TO EAT THEIR INTESTINES FIRST?” Krieg yelled, immediately jumping down once he noticed he could kill something. He reared his axe behind him as he landed on the ground below and immediately threw it into a monglets face.

“I guess we’re gonna jump right into it,” Axton watched Salvador cackle and jump after Krieg.

“Guess so,” Maya muttered, following loosely behind the two crazy men, while Gaige snapped out of her science tirade and summoned DT, hopping on his shoulder.

“To glory!” she pointed towards the bloody fight down below and DeathTrap hovered down.

“I shall stay here.” Zer0 perched his sniper on an ice ledge and began picking off bullymongs. Zer0 didn’t get a response and he looked around to see everyone had gone, “I am alone,”

Down below Krieg continued to rip through enemies either with his hands or his axe, covering himself in blood. He yelled about the blood and the meat the whole time.

“Who wants to be shot in the face?!” the gunzerker kept shooting into the dwindling numbers of bullymongs, some in phaselocks, some running amuck, and some already dead.

Maya and Axton decided they would let the other three deal with the up-close fight, staying a few meters behind the nearest blood stain. They wordlessly watch Gaige ride by on DT, screaming and firing corrosive rounds into bullymongs.

“Just look at all the uglies!” Gaige shot a bullymong in the face, “Ohohoho n _oo_ o,”

The field was littered with snarling and screaming from both the bullymongs and the three Vault Hunters. Zer0 was far enough away that it wasn’t too loud, but dear god they were a sight to see, he even portrayed a “haha” on his faceplate as he watched the comical scene. Maya and Axton looked dumbfounded and shot only a few that got out of the bloodbath that Krieg, Salvador, and Gaige were causing. 

Soon enough, there weren’t anymore bullymongs and Krieg got excited knowing there were more enemies through the gate, “Lemme in, leMME IN, LEMME IN!” he was almost jumping waiting for Gaige to open the gate.

“Alright, Alright, chill, dude,” the scrap metal door raised about three feet before Krieg ducked under and started mowing bandits down, “I seriously don’t think he knows how to chill,”

“I’d agree with you there,” Maya stood, waiting for the gate to fully open before going in. 

“A MILLION BUCKS!? Alright, boys, this is Captain Flynt! I want you to find those Vault Hunters and bring ‘em to me. NOWWWW!” The bandit leader seemed very adamant about finding the Vault Hunters, but what he didn’t realize was that Liar’s Berg was almost vacant of living bandits.

When the gate fully opened, it looked like there wasn’t much left to do. Krieg stood, breathing heavily, over a dozen or so bandits that all looked like they got tossed through a pit of saws.

“Awh, you didn’t save any for me, cabrone?” the gunzerker sadly put his guns away and kicked a nearby head of a bandit. 

“Hey, Hammerlock!” the steward bot called out to his “friend”.

A posh British voice filled their ears, “Spectacular -- first Captain Flynt’s bandits attack, then Claptrap shows up! I must have been horrifyingly cruel to puppies in a past life to deserve this kind of treatment. I say -- Vault Hunters, did you kill Captain Flynt’s men?”

“Got a proposition for you, Vault Hunters.” Flynt apparently didn’t realize all his men were dead, “You give up, we’ll just shoot ya in the head! It’ll be quick, clean and a hell of a lot less painful then what Handsome Jack’ll do to ya.” A few of the Vault Hunters chuckled and the others rolled their eyes at this bandits attempt to bargain.

“Oh no -- BULLYMONGS!” Claptrap cried out and tripped once again.

One brat bullymong was almost at the robot when it suddenly halted and sprayed blood out of its face. Zer0 flickered into sight with his katana in the bullymongs throat. He displayed a ‘:)’ and ripped his katana out, looking for his next victim.

Krieg didn’t care much for Zer0’s display, but he definitely used a similar method to kill other bullymongs. Much less clean, but close enough.

Maya planted herself next to one of the abandoned houses, using it as cover so they didn’t see her as easily while she phaselocked her enemies. 

Gaige decided to summon DT and hang out with Maya as she tinkered around with her arm, not really contributing a lot, but DeathTrap was doing some damage.

Salvador pulled his guns out and shot maniacally at a few bullymongs charging at him, happy to get to kill some more after Krieg took out all the bandits. 

“Chew ‘em up, turret!” Axton threw the box on the top of a building for elevated fire, while he stood almost directly underneath it. 

Honestly, a few minutes later and every foe in the town had been destroyed in the Vault Hunters differing ways and Captain Flynt finally recognized that his men were all dead, “DAMMIT! This ain’t over, grinder!”

“Hey, Hammerlock! Since my minions just saved your town, you wanna do your bestie Claptrap a favor and repair my eye?”

An exasperated sigh escaped the British man’s mouth, “Yes, I suppose I am in your debt now, aren’t I? Come to my shack and I shall repair Claptrap’s sight. First, I shall shut off the electrical fence for you.” A few seconds passed, “Please, stay back Vault hunters, let Claptrap go first.”

The Vault Hunters all stood at least a few meters away from the fence as they watched Claptrap bumble his way to the fence, “I knew Hammerlock would come around eventually. Me and him are like two peas in a pod! Two bullets in a mag! Two cannibal midgets in a fat-” Claptrap shut up as he got electrocuted.

“Apologies, but when Claptrap speaks, I feel my brain cells committing suicide, one by one. I shall be out directly.” 

There was some rustling coming from the shack behind the fence, then the door opened up. A man marched out with a hunting vest covering a collared shirt and matching pants. Both his right arm and leg were missing and instead were metal replacements. He sported a mustache that seemingly attached to his sideburns and small, circular glasses, the right side shattered. He saluted to them, “A pleasure to meet you, Vault Hunters. I am Sir Hammerlock.” he released his salute, “At your service.” He jogged up to the fence and turned off the electricity, “I came out here to research the bullymongs for my almanac, but Captain Flynt’s men trapped me on this glacier. Many thanks for disposing of them, by the way. To survive a direct run-in with Handsome Jack AND defeat Captain Flynt’s bandits? Unheard of!” the gate popped open, “I’m headed to Sanctuary, myself -- from what I hear, the Crimson Raiders there could use some heroes like you.” He stuck his hand out, “Now, if you could hand me the robot's eye, please.”

Gaige looked around in her storage deck for a moment, then pulled out the mangled lens, “Here ya go!”

“Good lord, what happened to this thing?” Sir Hammerlock turned it over in his hand to get a better look at it.

“Knuckle Dragger, I told Claptrap that thing is almost unusable!” she explained her plight of the robot not trusting her.

“I do say, this is a mess, but it can be done.” Hammerlock sighed and ran his hand down his face, “This isn’t the first time Claptrap needed new optics. And he loves to come to me to fix him!”

“Oh, jeez,” Gaige looked sympathetically at the man, “That must SUCK.”

“It does indeed ‘suck’,” Hammerlock began twisting wires and soldering metal together for a few minutes while the group watched, “Now, I need to connect this to this, and…” He twisted the lens into place and punched the side of Claptrap’s face, “That should do it!”

The steward bot jumped back to life, “Ha-HA! I am ALIIIIIVE!” he looked at the group.

“Oh, dear. He’s talking again.”

“Minions! Now I’ve got my eyesight back -- and you guys are much uglier than I remembered! Time to join up with the Crimson Raiders in Sanctuary! This glacier is full of nothing but murderers and jerkbags, like that Hammerlock dude!”

Hammerlock rolled his eyes, “I’m standing right here, “dude”. Now that Liar’s Berg is clear, I might as well turn on the main power. This town’s full of things that may be of use to some go-getting slayers of men like yourselves.”

“I think we need some time to rest before we head out to Sanctuary,” Maya pointed out, “We still never really got any time to rejuvenate after our run-in with Jack, do you think these houses are in decent enough condition to offer some cover for a night or two?”

“Ah, yes. Of course. There may be a few dead bodies inside the houses, but for the most part, I’d say they’re ripe for the taking since their previous owners have been killed.”

“Thank you, Sir Hammerlock. I’m going to start looking for some decent ones.” Axton, Maya, Zer0, and Salvador all went separate directions to find suitable housing, while Gaige skipped after Hammerlock, inquiring about his prosthetics. Krieg kind of just stood by Hammerlock’s shack for a moment before sauntering off in the direction Maya went in.

~~~~~

 _Of course, we’re following her,_ the voice in Krieg's head sighed, _At least try not to be too creepy._

Krieg grunted, acknowledging the voice’s thoughts, however, he still walked towards Maya, staring intently. She was trying to break the locks to a certain house with her hands at first, second by kicking it, then finally she tried phaselocking it. After a few moments of frying the lock, it melted enough for her to kick the door down. Krieg watched her smile slightly at her success, bringing a smile of his own to his face.

Once she busted the door down, she turned and saw Krieg out of the corner of her eye. _Quick, act like you’re doing something!_

Krieg immediately started flicking the edge of his buzzaxe, focusing hard enough that he thought he stood there for an hour.

“Hey, big guy,” Maya called out to him, “Whatcha doin’ there?”

He looked up imprudently, grunting as if saying, “Who, me?”

She chuckled, “Yes, you,” _Oh, man._ _Her laugh is the best thing I've ever heard_. Krieg looked around for a moment then extended his arm showing her his buzzaxe.

“Just messing with that thing, huh?” she took a few steps forward and put one hand on her hip, “Why don’t you help me clear some space in this house?” Maya looked at him expectantly, her stormy grey eyes intoxicating him, even the voice in his head didn’t have anything to say. He just nodded.

“Alrighty, then,” she dropped her arm and waved him forward, “Come on,” 

~~~~~

An hour or two later, Krieg and Maya had made a nice little bedroom out of the main area. They pulled out every bit of furniture that wasn’t a mattress or sofa, then scavenged the other houses for decent-ish soft surfaces. Some had bloodstains, but if you just threw a sheet over it, it was okay.

They stood at the edge of the room and looked at their work; almost every part of the floor was covered in some sort of thing you could lay on. 

“Nice work!” Maya exclaimed, putting her hand up for a high-five, before realizing her company.

Krieg looked at her hand, then her, looking like he was thinking extremely hard about what to do with this motion. He raised his hand slowly, then gently placed it on Maya’s. They stood there for probably 30 seconds, just staring at each other before Maya chuckled.

“That wasn’t what I was going for, but I’ll take it,” She pulled her hand back, Krieg whimpered slightly and cocked his head to the side. Maya looked back at the man, “A high-five; have you ever heard of a high-five?” she tried her best not to sound mocking, she had no idea what this man’s history was and where he came from, it wasn’t her place to judge.

He shook his head ‘no’. Maya took a second to think of a good way to explain it.

“It’s like a light slap, almost.” she moved her own hands together, making a clap, then took his hand, guiding it to hers, “Like this, but just enough to make a sound, ya know?” Maya looked up at Krieg, staring into his one brown eye.

He still looked a little confused, but he put his hand up, waiting for Maya’s and slapped her hand. 

“Ooh, okay,” Maya pulled her hand back, massaging her palm, “A bit too much power there, but yeah, that’s a high-five,”

Krieg looked concerned at first, seeing that he had hurt his lovely blue lady. He took a small step forward and held his hands out as if to catch Maya if she fell. But, his concern wore away after Maya expressed that she was okay and that he did it! Almost like a child, Krieg became giddy at the thought of doing well and from high praise.

Maybe Krieg got a little too excited, “NOT BAD FROM THE MEAT,” he yelled, making Maya flinch at the volume but chuckled, nonetheless.

She fell back into the pile of soft surfaces with an ‘oomph’, “No, not bad at all.” she layed back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Maya closed her eyes for a minute or two, taking the moment to relax after all the work that had been done over the past two days. 

When she opened her eyes, Krieg’s head comically popped into the bottom of her sight. Maya laughed again and patted a spot next to her, “Take a load off, Krieg. We did some good work,” Maya smiled, noting that Krieg’s visible eye got slightly bigger.

~~~~~

 _Ohhh, my god. Alright, just sit down next to her_ , Krieg moved to lay down, _NOT TOO CLOSE_. Krieg’s inner voice was terrified of scaring the siren in front of him, though she guessed she wasn’t too easily scared.

Krieg grumbled and sat down about three feet away from the woman.

“Hey, I don’t bite,” Maya turned her head, “I promise,” Krieg stared at her, namely her blue lips. He wasn’t sure if her lips were actually blue or she wore blue lipstick. Krieg just watched as her lips moved, noting that the right side of her mouth moved slightly more.

“Krieg?” He shook his head, _she was talking to us! God, you’re stupid_. He looked at her eyes this time as she laughed, “I asked if you knew anything about this Captain Flynt character?”

Krieg thought for a moment, trying to remember if he **did** know anything about Flynt. Eventually, he shook his head ‘no’. He kept his eye trained on Maya as she spoke like he was memorizing her face.

“Yeah, I guess he’s just some bandit leader,” Krieg watched her look back up at the ceiling, “Well, I suppose I’m gonna check on the rest of the gang to see how they’re doing. Wanna come?”

He thought about it for a moment, _Nuh-uh. We are not going out there. We can hang out in here_ , “ArgH, LITTLE MAN SAYS I CAN’T RELEASE THE SMILEY PAIN,” Krieg remained seated but was visibly upset about not going.

Maya, pursed her lips, “The little man, huh?” she shrugged, “Alright, well, see ya in a bit then,”

Krieg dropped his head, sadly watching as his lady love walk out of the room, _You have to listen to me if you want to get through to her. We’ve got to work on_ **_me_ ** _talking._

“UGH, quiet the foul thought,” Krieg grumbled, staring at the door, hoping Maya would come right back in.

~~~~~

Maya walked around Liar’s Berg for a bit searching for her other new friends. She followed a remarkable screeching sound coming from one of the neighboring houses.

“MOTHERF- ugh, okay it’s fine, it’s fine, whatever… FUCK!” the mechromancer’s voice was muffled.

Maya gently knocked before opening the door, peeking her head through, “Uh, Gaige?”

Gaige whipped her head around from the desk she positioned herself in, “Oh, hi Maya!” she turned completely around and revealed what probably pissed her off so much, “I’m, uh, having some technical difficulties,” she chuckled, motioning to her arm.

“Ah, anything I can help with?”

“Uhhhhhm, nope! Don’t think so! It’s just this piston keeps getting stuck-” she hit the side of her metal arm, “in the stupid-” she hit it again, “piston rings! Ugh!” Gaige threw her other arm down, her hand clenched in a fist.

Maya just stared at the genius girl, “Well, I’ll drop off some spare parts if I find any that look like they might fit,” Maya looked around the small room Gaige acquired, “Do you know where the others are?”

Gaige pointed to the room next to hers with her thumb, “They’re in there,” she rolled her eyes, “Axton and Salvador are arm wrestling for some Rakk Ale, I guess. Zer0’s in there, too. I got him talking a little more!” Gaige flushed a little pink when she spoke of Zer0, “But now he’s meditating or something,” 

Maya raised one brow at the ginger, smirking slightly, “I’m gonna ask them about this Captain Flynt,”

“Okie doke,” Gaige dove back into working on her arm by throwing it up on the desk with a thud.

Maya walked into the next room to find exactly what Gaige was talking about; Sal and Axton were swearing at each other with either of their arms fighting for dominance, while occasionally glancing at a six-pack of Rakk Ale. She rolled her eyes once more and turned to Zer0, who was quietly sitting in the corner.

She couldn’t tell if Zer0 was awake or not, so she just cocked her head and furrowed her brow at the man and tried to make out any indicator of life behind his mask. She jumped a little when he portrayed a ‘?’ from his faceplate.

“Oh, jeez. Sorry, Zer0. I was wondering if you knew anything about Captain Flynt?”

He turned his head slightly away from Maya, then back towards her with a ‘no’.

“Hmph.” She crossed her arms, looking back at the other two who were now sweating at their efforts, “I thought Gaige said she got you to talk more?” Again, she couldn’t make out any emotion coming from the guy. The only motion she got was a shift in his arm position as he straightened his back.

Maya dropped her arms and turned back to the others, “What about you two; know anything about Flynt?”

“No, ma’am,” Axton grunted.

“Sorry, senorita,” 

“Uh,” Maya looked down at the ale, “Why don’t you guys just share it? That stuff’s alcohol content is through the roof,”

“There’s-” Axton’s grip slipped a little, “Whoa! There’s honor on the line now,”

Salvador took advantage of Axton’s slip and pounded his opponent's arm to the table, “Hah! I win, for mi abuela!” he immediately stood up with the Rakk Ale, popping one open and taking a deep drink, “Ah! Very refreshing, my friend. Too bad you didn’t win,” Salvador lightly punched a butthurt Axton’s shoulder.

Maya chuckled slightly and left the room, back to Gaige, who looked like she might’ve gotten her arm working again.

“Any info?” Gagie glanced at the siren.

“Nah, nobody knows anything. I suppose Hammerlock would know more,” 

“Yeah, he’s got some pretty good information about some stuff. I dunno if it’d be about bandits, but he’s a scholar and does a lot of research on organic species! That’s actually how he lost his arm and leg; some thresher, I think.” Gaige looked back at her arm, which suddenly straightened out and cracked the table. Groaning, she muttered, “His prosthetics work waaaay better than mine,”

“Well, his don’t summon cool robots, do they?”

Gaige smiled up at Maya, “No, they sure don’t. Thanks, Maya.”

“Hey, no problem. Also, Krieg and I pulled mattresses from a bunch of houses and made a giant bed if you want an okay-ish place to sleep,”

“Sounds good, see ya later!”

~~~~~

After maybe 20 minutes, the door opened and Krieg basically jumped up to meet Maya. The second he saw her blue tattoos, a smile erupted on his face, of course, obstructed by his mask, but his eye was looking happy either way.

 _Ohohoho! So you do like her?_ Krieg shook his head at the little man, “BLUE LADY FIND OTHER MEAT?”

Maya flinched a bit at the volume, “Yes, I did find them, but they don’t know any more about Flynt than we do.” she closed the door behind her and looked to Krieg, noticing his happiness, “You, uh, happy there?”

Krieg nodded vigorously, “MY BLUE LADY,” _wow, a little forward, huh? Can’t go back on this one…_ If Krieg’s inner voice could shake his head, that’s exactly what would be happening.

Maya’s cheeks flushed slightly, making Krieg smile even more, “Uhm, ooookay,” she fiddled with her hands, still at the door. 

The psycho sat down where he was standing on the mattress, and pat the spot next to him, mimicking Maya earlier. He watched as she blushed a little more before sitting down next to him.

“You know, even with your ramblings and rampages, you’re surprisingly sane, Krieg,” Maya shook her head, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were just a normal guy,”

 _If only she knew_ , “MEAT COULDN’T BE NICER.” Krieg lightly yelled, laying back on the mattresses.

“I suppose, yeah,” Krieg watched her fall back next to him, “Uhm, what did you mean by ‘your blue lady’?”

 _Now you’ve done it. Try to work your way around this one._ He looked to her, “SEEING YOUR MEAT RED WOULD BE DISPLEASING,” _I guess that’s a less aggressive approach._

“Ah, I see. Well, I wouldn’t want to see you hurt, either, Krieg,” the siren met his gaze. He soaked up her appearance as he had before, just now realizing she also had three blue dots under her left eye. He guessed they were a part of her siren tattoos, although he hadn't noticed if they glowed.

Maya yawned, stretching her arms upwards and turned completely facing him. She brought her clasped hands to her head as a pillow, "Well, I'm gonna try to get some sleep, alright, big guy?" 

_Why is it that I get stuck with you during the one time we meet normal people on this_ _planet_? Krieg growled a low hum that was barely audible, "SLEEP SAVES THE MEAT FROM WEAK," _Oh, yeah. **That** makes sense._

"I guess it does," Maya closed her eyes, "G'night, Krieg,"

He was a bit miffed about not being able to see his sirens eyes anymore, but it gave him the time to memorize the rest of her face. Her skin was extremely pale, and almost had a light blue tint to it. Maybe because she was a siren? Or maybe it's just where she was from? Who knew? Krieg certainly didn't. Nor did he really care that much as he was immersed in the rest of her face. Her eyebrows were slim, the same blue as her hair and they were almost constantly angled in a way that made her look angry. Krieg appreciated the look, almost as much as he enjoyed looking at her lips. He still couldn't tell if it was lipstick or her natural color.

His inner voice followed along with his outermost self's thoughts as he himself wondered if she would leave blue kisses along his face. Krieg doubted that his insane self would ever take off the mask willingly, though. Nonetheless, he savored the idea. The two minds drifted while they were thinking about their siren.

~~~~~

Gaige fiddled with her arm, taking apart the presumably malfunctioning piston that caused her so many problems. She muttered to herself while she tinkered with the mechanics, “This stupid- fuckin’- thing, UGH!” Gaige tossed the tiny Allen wrench behind her, planting her face in her one hand. When it didn’t clatter to the ground, she turned to see Zer0 standing there, holding the tool.

Walking towards Gaige to give her the wrench back, he portrayed a “?” on his faceplate.

She sheepishly took it back, “Sorry, Zer0. Didn’t mean to throw that at you,” Gaige looked down at her half metal arm on the cracked desk, “It’s just that I took apart the piston that I thought was malfunctioning, but there’s nothing mechanically wrong with it, so it must be the radial nerve ports, but THAT requires much more precise work and tools that I don’t have!” she complained and landed her face back into her hand.

“How inconvenient / Your mechanics have failed you / How can I assist?” Zer0 took a seat on a nearby sofa arm, with his head slightly cocked to the side.

Gaige stared at him for a moment, contemplating his offer, I mean, she wanted to get to know him more, so this might be a good opportunity, right? “Yeah, I guess I might need an extra hand since mine isn’t working,” she lightly smacked the hunk of metal before looking around to see if there was another chair she could pull up for the assassin.

Zer0 seemed to understand what Gaige was looking around for and he went to the other room where Salvador was passed out on the floor and Axton on the sofa above him and he pulled the chair out from the table. He brought the chair back to the main room, setting it next to Gaige’s chair.

She began taking apart the rest of her arm that was still connected to her flesh, Zer0 watching intently. Gaige could feel Zer0 watching her and blushed a bit, but kept at the arm. 

After a few minutes, the arm was completely off of her body and all of the nerve ports had been disconnected. Gaige laid out the arm on the desk and began assembling it together again, but was struggling a bit with keeping it steady, “Uhm, Zer0?” She looked at the man.

He looked back, “Could you hold the arm steady so I can put it back together?” he nodded and grabbed the hunk of metal.

Gaige looked at his hands before starting up again. _He only has four fingers? Huh._ She got closer to her arm and worked for probably 10 minutes, moving Zer0’s hands occasionally so she could work on that spot. Her arm itself was fine, some wear and tear, but nothing bad, and the nerve ports were intact. She groaned.

“Your arm’s together / Everything looks perfect / What is the issue?”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Gaige whined, “Everything on the arm _is_ perfect, so that means the problem is on what’s left of my arm,” She motioned to her hidden shoulder, “Which is even _harder_ to work on,” 

She felt a hand on her back, “It will be alright / We can get you the parts needed / I will help then, too,” Zer0 ‘smiled’ and patted her back, almost sending sparks up her spine. Gaige straightened out from the touch and Zer0 pulled his hand back, making her frown the tiniest bit.

“Thanks, Zer0,” she looked at the metal, “I suppose I should get some rest, Maya said something about a room full of soft surfaces to lay on, wanna join?” Zer0 nodded and they headed out to the only other house that was lit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How y'all living? Is the story to your liking? LMK :)


	4. Bullymongs? Bullymongs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krieg and Maya head out on a mission to rid Liar's Berg of the bullymong infestation. 
> 
> Includes the mission: This Town Ain't Big Enough

“So, our fearless leader Jack is looking for you. Charming fellow, isn’t he?” Hammerlock joined the Vault Hunters as they were eating breakfast, “Spouts drivel about “bringing peace to the frontier”, then shoots unarmed men, women, and children like it was going out of style!” he sat down at the almost unusable table, “Bah -- I’m spouting exposition again, aren’t I? Apologies!”

Gaige was the first to respond, “So far, everything I’m hearing from you guys just solidifies everything I researched on Eden-5. Jack is a horrible person,” she bit into her bullymong sandwich, tearing off what looked like a tendon.

“Did a lot of research there, huh?” Axton gruffly asked the kid, “What else did you learn about Pandora?”

“Mostly just about how Jack busted the vault open and then Eridium started popping up all over the planet,” Gaige said through the food in her mouth, “Believe it or not, there’s not that much research about Vaults and Eridium and stuff. BUT, I did learn about _how_ Jack became all horrible and stuff. I found these Echo logs on the dark web from Athena! Well, I actually don’t think they’re from Athena, I think someone was recording her cause it sounds like she had been captured somewhere,” Gaige finally swallowed her food and continued her ramblings, “From what it sounded like, it was like she had been captured and she was talking about how Jack started out as a low ranking Hyperion stooge then built his way up, but he was actually helping Athena and a few other people, like Claptrap here,”

Salvador perked up, “Jack was a good person? I don’t believe that, senorita,”

“Hey, man,” she threw her one arm up in defense, “I can try to find the Echo logs again, but that’s what they said,”

“Hmm, well I think he’s long past that good person now,” Maya added, keeping a side-eye on the psycho that was gnawing on a bullymong bone by himself a few meters away.

“BAD HANDSOME MAN,” Krieg shouted.

“I hear ya there,” Salvador agreed with the psycho and pumped his fist.

Hammerlock changed the subject, “The bounty board is broken, friends. The resistance must have disconnected it before they left for Sanctuary, but I do have a few jobs for you if you’d like,”

“Yeah, that’d be great, I think we’re about ready to get a move on,” Axton looked around at the group that no longer had dark circles under their eyes and their various bruises now had a yellowish tint.

“Ah, excellent!” Hammerlock perked up, “So, how are you enjoying Liar’s Berg? This town used to have a spectacular amount of hustle and/or bustle before it’s denizens fled to Sanctuary to escape Jack’s army. Most of them, anyway. Captain Flynt’s men killed anyone who stayed.” Hammerlock had a slight furrow in his brow, “Though Captain Flynt killed everyone in Liar’s Berg, I see no reason that wild bullymongs should lollygag about the place, disrespecting the memories of the former townsfolk. If you could clear the town of them, that would be most gentlemanly,” Hammerlock stood from his spot at the table and saluted to them, “Many thanks, Vault Hunters,”

They watched as he marched his way back to his shack, when Krieg perked up again, “I SEE MEAT MUSCLES!” he stood, sliding his mask back down over his face before turning around. He was either jittery or bouncing in excitement at the thought of massacring more bullymongs. Aside from bandits, they were his favorite to kill.

Maya chuckled at the man, “Alright, well, I’ll go with him to get rid of the bullymongs in town,” she stood and walked towards him, “Y’all should see if Hammerlock has any more jobs for you guys,”

~~~~~

Maya followed the large psycho to the cemetery of Liar’s Berg, immediately noticing the two adult bullymongs waiting for prey. She waited to see if there were any more, but Krieg had different plans.

“DON’T CRY WHEN I PULL YOUR LUNGS OUT THROUGH YOUR CHEST!” He sprinted forward at the bullymongs, catching their attention with his yell. Maya immediately pulled out her incendiary SMG and began taking potshots at the bullymongs that were a little too far out from Krieg’s reach. 

They and all of their kin and friends started either running at Krieg or digging up ice chunks to toss at him. They were met with a mutated badass psycho who ripped through their numbers like they were nothing. Krieg continued to slice through the bullymongs - big and small - till there was only one left. Maya decided to shoot the brat once, just to catch it on fire, then let Krieg rip it to pieces.

She looked around once more to make sure every last bullymong in the area was called out to the cemetery. Maya concluded her scan and held her SMG at the side, unsure as to what she should do about the badass standing in front of her. Would she have to shoot him? Would he turn on her and try to kill her? She wasn’t too far out from the rest of the Vault Hunters, but would they get there in time? Thankfully, she didn’t have to answer any of those questions.

Breathing heavily, Krieg shrunk back down to his normal size, shaking his head to rid himself of the red he saw. He waited for a moment or two before turning to Maya again. Krieg grunted then tossed his head in the direction of the crevasse right next to the cemetery. 

This location only had a few monglets running around and tripping over their underdeveloped limbs. Maya nodded towards the man as she pulled out her sniper, this time staying way outside of the fight Krieg was obviously going to have.

He jumped down and landed directly on a monglet, axe first; Pandora’s gravity didn’t do much to hurt the bullymong, but Krieg’s axe did. Krieg laughed at the spray of blood that came from the small bullymong, then the next monglet that decided to charge him. Krieg didn’t even need to mutate for these enemies, he just kept throwing his axe into every and any bit of fur he saw, eventually ridding the town of the bullymongs once and for all.

Maya wondered if she should go into their dens to see if they had even smaller monglets that they should kill. Those that weren’t ready to be outside yet. Did they even have smaller monglets? Did bullymongs lay eggs? She supposed these were questions for Sir Hammerlock, who was studying them, naturally. She shrugged and decided to check out the inside of the dens, anyway.

She jumped down off of her perch, landing directly in front of a den. Maya glanced back towards the psycho lingering around the various pieces of bullymong in the valley, who seemed to be looking back at Maya occasionally, as well. She smiled slightly; _my blue lady._ Maya looked down, a blush creeping onto her face, but she quickly dismissed the thought as she looked into the dark cave. 

She crept around in the dark, her eyes only adjusting slightly making it very difficult to actually know if there were any extra enemies. Still keeping herself on the defensive, Maya stepped lightly and made her way deeper into the maze of tunnels the bullymongs made. She never knew they were this deep, actually, she thought these dens were just that - dens. Maya was too focused on making sure she remembered how to get out when she tripped on a furry limb.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” a badass bullymong roared awake along with what Maya thought were two more adult bullymongs, at least. “Goddammit, Maya,” She pulled out her SMG, shooting into the badass with the fire rounds, lighting up the tunnels. Not quite enough light, however, as she got hit with what she assumed was a block of ice that she never saw coming. Getting knocked back a bit, Maya decided it was probably a good idea to get them into open space so a) she could see better and b) she wasn’t in an unfamiliar tunnel system that getting lost in might result in death. She phaselocked an adult before she turned around.

Shooting her fire rounds in front of her, Maya turned towards what she hoped was the cave entrance and began to sprint. She got hit with another chunk of ice that this time knocked her completely forward. Landing with a face full of whatever the bullymongs had tracked in, she tried to stand up but was immediately pinned down by the badass.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Maya braced herself for the impending doom, but her phaselock expired and exploded various elements on the bullymongs, distracting them and letting Maya squirm her way out of the badass’s grip, “Ha _ha_ ,” she lit up the cave once more and heard an angel of a voice, as far as she was concerned.

“I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT A **REAL** BADASS IS!” without turning to look at Krieg, she let a spray of bullets loose on the remaining adult while he took out the badass.

Krieg was _very_ excited to meet a badass for the first time in, like, 3 days, so he savored every moment of the fight. First, he went directly for its tiny legs, hoping to cause some kind of movement from the thing, but unfortunately, the bullymong just stopped moving altogether, sitting on it’s legless behind. 

Of course, this did not please the psycho and he almost went full rampage but reeled himself back when he saw a flash of blue. Krieg instead jumped behind the badass and began sawing away at one of its arms. It roared in pain and quickly turned around and backhanded Krieg so hard that he went flying into the wall of the cave.

Twitching, he began laughing, “THIS IS THE FIGHT I CAME FOR, BADASS!” Krieg snarled and charged at the bullymong, “HERE COME THE BAD TIMES!!” he jumped a few feet away, twisting himself in the air, and landing his buzzaxe into its neck. It yelped and roared once more before Krieg pulled his axe out, dropped it on the ground, and ripped off the badass’s head with his bare hands. “WHY THE QUIET?” he held it’s head up, talking to it.

Maya had finished off her adult before Krieg had finished his, but she decided to watch the show instead of helping him. It marginally bothered her when Krieg basically got bitch-slapped to the wall, but his comeback made it alright. His grotesque way of beheading the creature, however, made her gag. Not only did the smell absolutely reek - even more than the cave itself - but it sprayed the blood and foul-smelling whatever all over Krieg.

_God, I’m gonna have to hose him off or something._ Maya thought while holding her nose, watching the man continuously yell at the head. 

“Alright, that’s enough,” Maya hesitantly stepped forward, partly not wanting to get closer to the foul smell and partly unsure if she should interfere with his insaneness.

Luckily, it was an okay call as Krieg just dropped the head and turned towards her with one worried eye. He went to observe Maya to make sure the badass didn’t hurt her, but she held up a hand to stop him before he got closer.

“Dude, we gotta clean you off, that bullymong smell is _not_ flattering,” He tried to smell his arm but his air filtration system in his mask prevented him from doing so. Maya cocked her head to the side, “You can’t smell with that mask on, can you?”

He shook his head ‘no’ and she nodded, thinking. She decided that getting out of the cave was top priority at the moment. Then, cleaning the stink off of the psycho.

“Okay, let’s get out of this cave,” Maya started walking with a tiny limp in her leg that she just now noticed. Looking down, she just saw a fresh bloodstain on her right thigh, not knowing what actually caused the wound. She would make that number 3 on her current priority list. 

~~~~~

Krieg saw the limp that the siren was trying to cover up and almost lost his mind, _Hey, I'm upset about it, too, but she'll be okay._ Krieg's inner voice tried his absolute best to reason with the outer psycho who had trailed about two feet behind Maya, but he just growled more and more. Still not quite audible, Krieg was doing an excellent job of stifling his rage. Maybe because he had already slaughtered the thing that presumably hurt his siren, but his anger was still quite active and Krieg found another reason to love killing every bullymong in his path and more.

"Hey, I think Gaige can probably fix up a shower in Liar's Berg, can I trust you to get that stink off?" Maya asked without looking back at the seething man. At least not at first, "Krieg?" she stopped moving and let him catch up to her.

Krieg couldn't meet her eyes as he was too busy staring at her leg and the bloodstain that was getting ever-so-slightly bigger. Maya continued to try and pull his attention to her face, but he just couldn't do it.

_Look at her._ Krieg didn't avert his gaze, _Do you want to rampage and accidentally kill her?_ That got his attention, his eye got bigger in fear, _That's what I thought, you've_ got _to let her talk to you._

It took a second for the psycho to tear his eye away from Maya's leg to make it to her face. She looked really worried, she was trying to talk to him, but the words weren't registering. Maya was now desperately keeping his attention at her face. He wasn't sure if she knew that her leg injury was the reason he was losing his grasp at fluid consciousness. It didn't really matter.

Krieg stared at the siren with one eye that was teetering rage and worry. The ramblings of his insane self was radiating through his skull a mile a minute, maybe that was why he could see her lips move but didn't hear any words?

_LISTEN TO ME,_ luckily the sane inner voice got a bit louder, _SHE WILL HELP YOU. LET HER._ Fearing that he might lose control if he opened his mouth, Krieg very slowly pointed to Maya's leg. Krieg watched her face as she followed his finger and a look of understanding washed over her. 

Luckily, Maya understood the psycho's plight and she took a hesitant step forward. Krieg stared and waited for something to happen, but it seemed like the closer she got, the quieter the voices were. He twitched when Maya pulled her arms from her side and began to move towards his face. She paused. Looking at her grey eyes, he saw a twinge of worry, but mostly determination.

He twitched again as she began moving again, but this time she didn't stop. Krieg froze like time stood still around the two of them. Her hands fluttered to either side of Krieg's face/mask.

Everything went quiet.

Krieg's worry and rage subsided as Maya's cold hands sobered him. Luckily for him, her hands were mostly on his skin causing him to almost melt at the touch. It's like he had been drugged as every voice in his head shut up, even the sane one. 

"Krieg?" Maya carefully called out to him, he savored the sound.

He still couldn't bring himself to speak, but he blinked multiple times to note that he had heard her. She nodded in understanding, her left hand shifting slightly downward towards his jaw. Her right hand stayed firmly on the side of his face while her left trailed to his shoulder, pushing him to sit down.

"Okay, finally something the Abbey taught me is worth something." Maya kneeled in front of the psycho, bringing her tattooed arm back up to the side of Krieg's face, "alright, I need you to focus on me; my eyes, nose mouth, hell forehead, if you want to. But it needs to be _me_ , okay?" Krieg blinked at her, staring at her, "Okay. Good. Now I want you to imagine tension and anger and other negative emotions to have a color. Do you have a color?" Obviously it was red. He blinked, "Find where those feelings are in your body then put that color there, okay?" Blink, "Starting from your toes and feet, I want you to tense up or flex those areas of your body that have that color, then when you release, imagine the color disappearing. Again, start at your feet, and work your way up to your head, try to take it slow." Blink, blink, "You can close your eyes if you feel like that'll help," No blink, "No problem, you can keep focusing on me."

Maya leaned to her left leg, avoiding putting unnecessary pressure on her wound. Krieg noticed and tried to look down at her leg, but she caught it, "Ah. My face." She pulled his jaw so it was level with the ground. There was no way Krieg was gonna get a look at her leg in this position. 

He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again and began to imagine the red. It was everywhere. Krieg huffed slightly and began to flex his feet, then released. He imagined the red going away in a puff of red smoke. For a psycho, he had a very vivid imagination. Flex, release, smoke, repeat. For some reason, when Krieg's red anger smoke poofed out of whatever part of him, he saw some blue smoke almost leaking from Maya's tattoos, and the two colors mingled, not quite making a purple. Maya's blue smoke also lingered around Krieg's face, except it wasn't smoke as much as it was like an energy field.

The two of them sat there for probably half an hour while Krieg tried to release all of his anger with Maya holding on to his face. The touch soothed him more than he could explain. He didn't move for fear of moving the siren away from him, but it didn't seem like she was going anywhere.

Was he imagining this, too? Or was this real? Did it matter? Not to him.

~~~~~

Maya stared continuously at Krieg's one eye, slipping into a bit of a meditative state, as well. Even in the poorly lit cave, she could see some honey colors in Krieg's eye. Maya wondered what the other eye looked like while she studied the optical anatomy of the man. 

While she was busy admiring the color of his eye, she noticed the hands on the side of Krieg's head were getting really hot. Like Krieg just radiated heat and Maya's cold hands absorbed every bit of it. Maybe her hands her just cold because they were still on a glacier and it was freezing non-stop. But even on Athenas, Maya's hands were always cold. Siren thing? Girl thing? Who knew. Snapping her attention back to her hands being hot, she was glad it was still cold all around them so her hands - at least the non-gloved one - didn't just sweat onto the man's face.

As if she was reaching out through her power, she "looked" at Krieg. She felt the strong jaw of the man, followed by strong cheekbones. A very elegantly straight nose, except maybe it had been broken once or twice. Brown eyebrows, perpetually drawn together in an angry "V". She imagined well-proportioned lips that had been split a few times. Overall, a handsome man.

After a while, she noticed a strange aura around Krieg; a blue-ish tint surrounding him, mainly around his head. Maya furrowed her brows the tiniest bit as she wondered what the glow was. Krieg seemed to notice it, too, but he did his best to keep his eye trained on Maya. 

"How are you doing?" Maya asked in as soft of a voice she could muster. He looked between her two eyes a few times before grunting and slouching down, "Seems a bit better, yeah?" 

Krieg closed his eye and very shallowly nodded, then leaned into Maya's hand. She froze. Even though her arms were screaming for her to release her position, she couldn't in good conscience, do it. He was like a puppy who had a long day and just wanted to snuggle. In reality, he was a man who was tortured by himself constantly and this was his first breath of calm in who knows how long. Maya's maternal instincts refused to let her move away from him and instead of moving away, she brought herself closer, despite the bullymong smell.

Maya moved so that she was sitting next to Krieg, who now had stirred at the movement and was staring at her once more. She ignored his worried look and did move her hands, but she gently pulled the hulking man to her. Krieg seemed unsure as to how to react for a moment, but he slowly laid his head on her shoulder and Maya gladly accepted the movement. She brought her arm around his shoulders, as far as she could, anyway, and squeezed him in that side hug. 

Neither of the two of them knew how long they were sitting there.

~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you guys wanna hear a really bad goose joke that I saw on the internet? It's great I promise
> 
> What do you get when you combine a group of crows, a Hitman, and a chicken?
> 
> A murder most fowl.
> 
> hehehe I'll see myself out
> 
> Bird jokes aside, I hope y'all liked it! Lots of floofyness in this one :)


	5. Arms(Not the Gun Kind)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zero and Gaige go off to find some parts for Gaige's arm and a shield. 
> 
> Includes mission: Shielded Favors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this on like two hours of sleep so it might be a little different and reeeeeally short lol  
> also, this mainly focuses on the Gaige/Zer0 part of this story.

Zer0 decided he wanted to go check with Hammerlock for extra missions as Maya suggested, so he stood up from the table and silently walked towards where the scholar went.

“Hey, where ya going?” Gaige asked, standing up as well, skipping over to his position. 

He turned to the mechromancer and looked down at her, noticing she still hadn’t put her arm back together, “To see Hammerlock / When will you complete your arm? / It seems essential.”

She glanced at her left arm, “Yeeeah, I still need to neuro ports and I’m not sure I can get them here,”

“Perhaps Hammerlock would know more,”

“That’s true, maybe he’ll even have stuff to help!” Gaige perked up, “Let’s go ask him,” Zer0 nodded at the spritely girl and followed her to Hammerlock’s shack.

Reaching the deactivated electrical fence, Gaige ran up to his door and knocked a few times. Hammerlock promptly opened the door, again saluting the two Vault Hunters.

“Hello, Vault Hunters! Come from more missions?”

“Yeah, that and I need new nerve ports for my arm and I was wondering if you know where I could find some? Or at least something similar that I could manipulate into what I need?”

“Hmm, well I might have some prosthetic parts laying around, I shall look for you. One moment please,” the hunter disappeared into his house and began moving things around to find anything to help Gaige’s arm. He popped back out with a few tools, “This is all I could find, but I imagine the old Crimson Raiders base might have some spare parts lying about. And while you’re there, you might as well see if you can get a new shield.” Hammerlock stepped out of his house, “Perhaps let the other two know I have a job for them, as well.”

“Sure thing, Hammerlock,” Gaige saluted with two fingers to the man as she and Zer0 walked off, "So I guess we gotta go to that old shack over there," she paused by the gate controls and looked out across the snowy ground.

"I see bandits," the assassin pressed the button to raise the door to the rest of the tundra.

"Yeah, well not for long," she snickered and jumped off the platform, Zer0 following.

~~~~~

They made their way to the old base and took out the few bandits easily, however when they got to the elevator, it didn't budge with the controls, "Uh, Hammerlock?" Gaige echoed the man, "The elevator doesn't work," she paused and looked up at the next platform that was probably 50 feet up, "I'd climb, but I'm missing an arm,"

After a moment of static, Hammerlock spoke, "Of course. I forgot - the safehouse power box stopped working after Claptrap attempted to... integrate with it."

"Ah, what a kidder!" Claptrap apparently overheard the scholar, "Just get a new fuse for the elevator and ignore what he just said about the power box."

Gaige shuddered at the thought, "Gross, Claptrap."

Zer0 piped in with a frowny face on his faceplate, "I agree."

The two of them looked to the small encampment just south of the base, "I suppose a fuse could be there, I mean, there's an electrical fence that's gotta be powered by something," she looked a little closer, "more bandits, too." 

Zer0 pulled out his sniper and began picking off the bandits and marauders that were a little too close to the edge, "This shall be just as easy,"

"Okay, but I'm missing a key part of my being," Gaige pulled her corrosive pistol out, "It's probably easier for you," she jumped down off of the base and jogged forward, getting to the extra enemies that were hiding from Zer0. A few shots and a lot of bodies later and the encampment was free of the locals. 

"Ooh! There's a fuse on the other side of that electrical fence! Just run through it - you won't take any damage if you go fast enough!" Claptrap chimed in.

"Yeah, and varkids aren't flying nastiness," she shook her head and looked at the fuse box from a safe distance when she heard a shot and watched the shield go down.

"Staring at fuse box / It will not shut off that way / thought you needed help," 

"I maybe could've MacGyver'd some of those parts for my arm," Gaige put her one hard on her hip, giving a light glare to the man walking forward with his sniper on his shoulder. Shaking her head, she turned back to the box, now ruined from the sniper fire, "UGh! Now I certainly can't use anything from this!" she threw her arm up.

Zer0 popped out the fuse and put it in his storage deck, "Maybe the safehouse will have parts,"

Gaige stared at him for a moment before walking off, "Yeah, MAYbe," sighing, she muttered, "I guess I can't change anything now,"

"Just plug that fuse into Brewster's power box, and you'll be able to use the elevator!"

"YES, Claptrap, I understand, THANK YOU." Gaige rolled her eyes as the two Vault Hunters made their way back to the old base, "Do you think I could reprogram Claptrap to not be annoying?" she faced Zer0.

He pondered the idea for a moment, "No," Zer0 looked down at the girl, "Then, again, I don't believe anyone could. But, if it was possible, I'd bet on you,"

She blushed slightly, complimenting her already rosy cheeks from the cold, "Thanks, Zer0" Gaige looked at his smiling emoticon.

Climbing the scrap metal incline of the base, the two made it to the power box and shoved the fuse back in its place, "Got the elevator working, have you? Great! Now, simply ascend to the safehouse and buy a shield and find spare parts. This used to be a sizable hub for the resistance until everyone heard the Hyperion army approaching and fled to Sanctuary."

"So we hear," they rode the elevator to the next level, watching the pulley system all the while, weary of its capability. But, it did the trick and got them to the safehouse.

Gaige had to kick the door a few times before the rust cracked and allowed them inside. It was pretty plain; a table, a few chairs, and a couple of cots with lockers next to the Zed's Meds vending machine. Gaige went straight for the lockers to scavenge for anything that might help her arm situation while Zer0 headed to the vending machine, browsing the options it held. None were great, but one was a little better than what he had so he bought and equipped it.

"Did you want a shield, Gaige?"

She threw some clothes to the ground from the second locker, grunting in disappointment, "No I'm okay." But she sat there for a moment, pouting at the various things she found that didn't suit her needs, "This is why I'm so upset about my arm! There's nothing to replace the sockets with!"

"It will be alright, Gaige," Zer0 walked over to the girl and offered a hand up. Gaige looked up at him, still pouty faced before she accepted the help to stand. His hand was weirdly very warm, she furrowed her brow slightly.

Gaige's lack of filter got the best of her, "Why is your hand so warm?"

Zer0 just portrayed a question mark and looked down at his hand.

"I mean, I don't even know what kind of life form you are, so I suppose that's a rude question, but, like, it's FREEZING out here! My hand is damn near blue from the cold!"

Zer0 looked back down at the girl, "Well, you don't have sleeves / I imagine that would help / combat the freezing." 

"Well, yeah, but that's just me being dumb," she looked to the clothes she spread on the floor from the lockers, "I suppose I could grab a sweatshirt..." She thought about it, "Nah, it would ruin the aesthetic," Gaige turned away from the clothes, shooting a smug smirk at the assassin, "But you didn't answer my question!" 

"I am unsure why my hands are warm," Zer0 flexed his fingers, "I cannot feel the cold or the heat," Gaige watched his fingers, "It doesn't make much sense for me to be warm."

She studied his fingers for a few moments, "Your finger movements are too fluid to be a robot," Gaige snatched his hand, poking its center, "Definitely fleshy, unless you're some new cyborg thing that covered in flesh-like stuff to prevent you from being outed to the humanoid people." she chuckled, "Oh, man it's like this holovideo from Eden-5." She kept playing with Zer0's hand while she went off about a cyborg from the future trying to kill a certain Sarah Connor. 

Gaige didn't realize that this was the most physical contact Zer0 had been privy to in a long time... Maybe ever. Zer0 felt that he should've been uncomfortable but, the girl's mind was so scientifically-curious that he didn't feel strange at all. Except that he _wasn't_ feeling strange was a strange feeling. You feel?

"You are a challenge," 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not exactly what I thought it would be, but not too bad, I hope!


	6. Butt Stallion is a WHAT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vault Hunters go after Claptrap's ship and get berated by Jack all the while. Includes everyone's favorite: Butt Stallion!
> 
> Includes mission: Best Minion Ever  
> Kindof includes the end of Shielded Favors, Cleaning up the Berg, and Bad Hair Days.

Each Vault Hunter had done their respective missions and made their way back to Liar's Berg in various conditions. Axton and Salvador were pretty much good, a little trigger happy and delighted that they got to kill more bullymongs for Hammerlock's hat. Axton liked the sniper over Claptrap's stolen shotgun and Sal pretty much didn't care; he liked assault rifles and rocket launchers more than anything.

Gaige and Zer0 came back with a new shield and an upset mechromancer. Apparently, the safe house didn't have the parts for her arm that she desired and this was quite upsetting; especially because it had been almost two days that she hadn't seen her beloved robot. Gaige was getting increasingly irritable, even _with_ Zer0 and Maya's attempt at meditation and calming words. She had eventually repaired the nerve port that was causing problems to the point were it only backfired a few times a day, but the process was agonizing to anyone involved.

Krieg and Maya had returned from their task of sending the local bullymongs to the grave, which should've been pretty easy for the (arguably) two most powerful Vault Hunters on the team, but, the two came back to their little base looking a bit worse for wear. Maya realized she had taken a bit to the leg and it quickly became infected from the nastiness of a bullymong's mouth. She got a healing hypo pretty quickly, but it didn't help much; maybe an hour after they came back, Maya began looking pale and clammy.

This caused Krieg to lose his grip a little more and more every minute that his precious siren wasn't well. He went off killing everything he could see (that wasn't an innocent, of course) and kept at it for hours. 

Hammerlock had found a siren tome in his travels and offered it to Maya. Studying the book for a while, Maya found a self-healing portion and proceeded to speed up the healing process until she was completely better. Maya tried to give the book back to Hammerlock, but he refused, saying something about it being in the right hands.

Maya went out to find the psycho on the loose and reel him back to sanity when she noticed a bit of a disturbance towards the bandit settlements. She saw a leg or two fly and she caught on to what was happening; Krieg had found his way to the bandits and was absolutely demolishing them. She jogged towards the commotion and saw his rifling through some poor guys pocket, looking for... something. 

"Hey, buddy," She slowed to stop a safe distance away, "We need to get to Claptrap's ship here soon,"

Krieg's head shot up at the woman's voice and he immediately dropped what he was doing, going to scan over his blue lady for injury. She had taken a slight step back at the quick movements of the man, but she stood her ground as he looked over her, especially her leg.

"MEAT IS NOT RED?" 

"Nah, Hammerlock had a siren book and I figured out how to heal it up. I'm all good." Maya twisted her leg a bit so she could look at the near-perfectly healed skin through the new hole in her pants.

Krieg stared at her in silence, looking between her leg, her tattoos, and her face for a while, "GOOD."

~~~~~

"Flynt and I had a gentleman's agreement in the past. I gave him the loot from the bodies Jack ditches in the glacier, he promises not to torture me for hours at a time, and then he does it anyway!" the Vault Hunters all collectively agreed that Claptrap's default tone of voice was quite strange, "But that ends today! We're gonna take him out, steal my ship back, and sail to Sanctuary!"

Axton scoffed, "That easy, huh?" 

"Let's go this way!" the bot loved to ignore them, apparently.

They all followed behind the steward bot in pairs; Axton and Zer0, Salvador and Gaige, then Krieg and Maya pulling up the rear. 

"Seems like you took out the first wave of bandits we needed to mow down to get Claptrap's ship back," Maya playfully elbowed Krieg's side, earning her an amused huff. They walked closer to the previously inhabited area when Captain Flynt came over their echos.

"Here's what's gonna happen, Vault Hunters. My first mate Boom Bewm is gonna kill ya's, Jack's gonna pay us, and I'm gonna play hopscotch in your chest cavity!"

Maya made a disgusted looking face, "That's unnecessarily graphic," 

Gaige kicked a nearby leg, "Yeah, sure, but this is pretty gross, too."

"Now, be careful taking down Boom Bewm. He's known as one of the "ripper" clan. As in "flesh-ripper". I don't have to tell you guys why they're called that,"

"No, you sure don't."

Everyone groaned as the bot started to speak again, "They're called that because... because they rip people's flesh off."

"For fUCK's SAK-"

"Hey! How's it- god, these pretzels suck. How's your day been, buddy?" Jack saved Claptrap from an impending curse storm, "We haven't really talked much since I, heh, left y'all for dead. Hey, you think you'll freeze to death out there? Nah, probably not, the bandits'll get you first. My day? It's been pretty good. Just bought a pony made of _diamonds._ Yeah, because I'm rich. So, you know. That's cool. 'Kay, bye."

"Pony... made of diamonds?" Salvador's eyes lit up at the thought of the treasure.

"It can't be _alive_ , right?" Gaige was working through the numbers in her head, "Like, I don't think that's _possible_... right?"

Maya shrugged, "This is Pandora, you never know."

"Ain't that the truth," grumpy Axton joined the conversation. He was still butthurt about... something. 

Claptrap had officially noticed that he was standing in a massacre, "Minion, what have you DONE? These were human BEINGS, with lives and families, and-- Aahh, I'm totally kidding. SCREW those guys!"

"I'm racking my brain trying to think of a name for that diamond pony I bought. I was gonna name it "piss-for-brains" in honor of you, but that just feels... immature. Hey, maybe "Butt-stallion"? Nah, that's worse. Tell ya what, I'll give it some more thought."

"Man, Jack really is an ass, isn't he?" Gaige mused then a smile maliciously spread across her face, "A real _Jackass_ if you ask me." she looked ap and around looking for a reaction, which she got when Axton groaned, throwing his head back, "YES, that's what I like to see," she snickered to herself as they came up to the second bandit group.

"PROTECT ME, SQIRE!" 

If there was such a thing as a collective eye-roll, this group would've had it mastered by the amount of stupidity they had to deal with from that bot. 

Maya decided that she understood why Jack stopped his production line.

A few marauders and psychos went after the six of them, but their cries of battle were quickly silenced. It took them all of a few minutes to dispatch of Flynt's men.

"Somehow I doubt this whole thing will be terribly hard," Axton said as he picked up some cash from one of the marauders.

"Don't get too cocky, Axton," Gaige retorted, picking up some ammo, herself. He stuck his tongue out at the girl and she responded similarly.

Maya shook her head, watching Krieg pry his buzzaxe out of some smaller psychos face. When he managed to wriggle his weapon free, a bit of brain matter splattered on Maya's boot. She stared at it for a bit before scraping it off on a sheet of metal, "Hey, maybe watch where that flesh goes when you're flinging that thing around," Maya pointed to his axe, standing in a bit of a disappointed manner, making Krieg drop his head and mope quietly to her. She chuckled quietly and pat his shoulder, "Just make sure it doesn't hit someone's face," 

Maya turned to Claptrap who was now working on the control panel next to the drawbridge, "Aaaaaand open!"

"This bot is so frickin' annoying," Gaige muttered to herself.

"I should probably clarify--the diamond horse I've been telling you about? It's not a sculpture or anything. It's a living horse that actually happens to be made of-- actually, I'll just, I'll go get her-- Butt Stallion! Here, girl! Butt Stallion! Say hello!" to everyone's surprise, a horse neighed on the other end of the echo, "Butt Stallion says hello."

"No _fucking way_!" Gaige's jaw was almost at the ground at this point, "How is that even _real_?!" 

"He could always have an actual horse and be pretending it's made of diamonds," Sal was still apparently very much hoping that this pony wasn't real so he could loot it.

"Let's be honest; Jack's a dickbag, but he wouldn't lie," Maya pursed her lips. As much as she disliked Jack, she couldn't say that he ever lied. Deceived? Maybe, but that's a different story. Maya looked over at Gaige, the girl was still running the diagnostics in her head, but her face made it very clear that she believed that Jack genuinely had a horse made of diamonds. She was of the same mindset that Jack was a lil' shit but he wasn't a liar.

Krieg was twitching at the inaction, "It's tiME TO BLEED!" he had decided it was too quiet, Maya guessed.

  
"Minion, your master needs help!"

"I will pull your motherboard through your optic lens," Gaige threatened the little robot and that did the trick. He shut up. For the time being, anyway.

The group collected their share of loot, ammo, and guns then headed down through a hole in the ground towards the West of the settlement. They landed softly due to the Pandoran gravity then Claptrap's vocal emulator began to relay noise again.

"It's BOOM BEWM! AHHHHHHH!"

They successfully made it to the Wreck of the Ice Sickle when some guy in yellow jumped up onto a stationary rocket launcher then another midget shot into the air with a jetpack, both with a "which way is the beach" pose. They supposed the bigger one was Boom and the other was Bewm. Yet, they really didn't care.

"Light the fuses, bitches!" Some sparkler looking fireworks went off behind Boom, "I'm ready to BLOW!"

Gaige managed to summon DT, "We made it boy! Let's have some fun." and she pulled a different pistol than the corrosive one, maybe the one from Claptrap's place. Whatever it was, it did some damage, none elemental, but damage nonetheless.

Axton just threw his turret in the typical soldier style, sticking it to the ground in front of the group. Instead of pulling out a rocket launcher as he had on the train, he grabbed his favorite assault rifle and went off on the psychos running towards them.

Zer0 disappeared as he often did, but appeared again after he had deceived Boom into shooting at his hologram and not his new friends. The assassin managed to get pretty close to Boom, but the amount of psychos pouring from the side of the launcher was too much for one dude to take care of. (seriously, WHERE the fUck did they come from?)

Salvador, in classic fashion, grabbed and SMG and assault rifle and just went OFF on the two brothers.

Maya stayed to the back and sniped a few psychos, a few potshots on Big Bertha, and a few critical hits on Bewm.

However, Krieg stole the show when she wrecked Boom's beloved Bertha and took out Bewm's jetpack. Krieg rendered the two brothers almost useless. Boom basically profited off of the fact that Big Bertha did most of the work and Bewm relied on the jetpack to get his grenades to the spot he wanted. Apparently he couldn't throw very well.

After Krieg dismantled the two big factors in the battle, it was over quickly. Not one Vault Hunter actually got hit by a grenade or launcher and they were all pretty happy about that fact. Sometimes, they got hit with one and they didn't die so they didn't get re-new-U'd and their leg or arm or whatever would just be hanging on by a thread and it absolutely wasn't pretty.

The only one to actually follow what their robot "master" was up to was Zer0. He watched as the robot cursed the door holding them back from the bandit stronghold, "Raggin' fraggin' locked gate-- idea! Minion! Get on that canon!"(aren't we on that canon?) Claptrap pointed towards Big Bertha.

Zer0 went to the machinery, trying to work the controls, but the hunk of metal didn't move. He continued to ignore the steward bot.

"Need some help?" Gaige looked up at the assassin who sat at the controls. He nodded sheepily and Gaige went to tinkering on the giant hunk of a machine.

Literally a few minutes later and the bullet-riddled machine was up and running once again. 

"-that could cause SERIOUS damage to me. AHHHHHHHHH!" The bot yelled as he had many times before, but he was still in decent shape so none of the Vault Hunters really cared too much. Claptrap refused to move before Zer0 decided to blow the hell out of the wall blocking them from their mission, so that was his fault. Three waves of bandits came running from the gates after they blew and Zer0 stayed in the canon. Each wave was easily taken down by the canon. Zer0 thought that Boom must've really sucked at controlling this thing, cause it was really that easy to take down 3 dozen bandits with this thing? Pathetic that Flynt's first mate couldn't even get _one_ of the Vault Hunters.

A few stragglers came after the initial rush, but they were killed almost as quickly as the rest. A load of loot lay in the gates remnants and they marched their little behinds into the beginning of the maze that is Captain Flynt's bandit town.

"So, uh- I might have tried to stage a mutiny on Captian Flynt's ship before the flash freeze. Which explains why his men are currently beating the crap outta me. Right, guys?" Claptrap's annoying sound was coming from their echos and not the vibrations around them. It was a little better, but not by much. 

They heard another voice, "SHUT UP!" 

Axton half-heartedly chuckled, "That sounds like me,"

"Okay!" Claptrap complied with the bandit's request to be quiet. None of the Hunters could imagine bringing the steward bot along _just_ to torture him. He was annoying enough, he didn't need an extra reason to be noisy, yet maybe that's why they liked to? Who knew.

A few rakk's were divebombing the two lookouts on duty and luckily for them, the rakk's finished their job. I mean that means they had to deal with the flying vermin, by it wasn't too bad. They were usually pretty weak and easy to take out if you hit them just right. It maybe took two or three shots of a pretty low level weapon to get rid of them. As long as you noticed the flying patterns, you could pick the best times to kill 'em.

"So, Clatrap's got a new friend, huh? I gotta say, I miss the little hunka junk. The noises he made when we set him on fire... brings a tear to my eye." Captian Flynt was very adamant about getting this bot back.

Gaige tried to respond to the bandit, "Listen, dude. We really aren't friends with Claptrap, we just need him. So, if you give him back to us, we might let you live."

" _Gaige_!" Maya's motherly instinct kicked in at the thought of any of her group being dismissed. Even one as irritating at Claptrap.

" _What?_ They obviously aren't gonna take the bribe, but it might be easier to get close to them,"

"What, so we can take down a few hundred bandits in one moment instead of a few dozen at a time? No, I don't think so."

Gaige crossed her arms, "Whatever, _mom_ ,"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, super tired writing this one and maybe a bit tipsy, but I think it's a bit better than the last one XD  
> Also, I finally got a job after this whole 'Rona situation, so I might not post every few days, might be like a once a week thing, but, we'll see!  
> Thanks for reading! I love reading y'alls comments!


	7. Captain Flynt can Suck MY D-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vault Hunters continue to go after Claptrap's ship and, by proxy, Captain Flynt.
> 
> Includes mission: Best Minion Ever

Maya jumped down off the ice plateau first, causing the bandits to open the fence blocking them from Flynt’s town. A few psychos sprinted out from the opening, which Maya promptly phaselocked and crushed them with the elements. 

Krieg ran past the siren and screamed at the remaining bandits shooting at the group, “ARGAHAHA, THAT’S THE STUFF,” his axe landed in a marauders face. 

As the bandits lay dead in the snow, the Vault Hunters picked up any ammo or money they spotted. They ransacked the first line of defense for Flynt and left only shells of any chests or boxes. 

Leaving the wall, the Vault Hunters looked out at the encampment the bandits had set up; crudely made half-walls littered the outskirts, a bonfire was raging in the middle, some shitty shipment create-like things made up their homes. Some poles with wires connected to what looked like the center of their little town, indicating that maybe there were some electronics, like the vending machines.

A few bandits roamed around their homes, lazily holding their assorted weapons, blissfully unaware of the impending doom that lay ahead of them. 

Of course, all that ignorance was demolished when Krieg ran in, axe swinging and Salvador right behind him with a rocket launcher.

Maya, Gaige, Zer0, and Axton just watched the two wreak havoc on the town, “Do you think we should help?” 

“No, I think we might just be in the way more than anything,” Maya put her SMG away and watched the carnage. She scrunched her face, “You’d think maybe I’d be a little more used to flying body parts, at this point,” they all followed a particular arm that arced across the village plaza.

Axon stared at the now stagnant arm slowly bleeding into the snow, “Yeah, you’d think,” he glanced to Maya, “I was with Dahl for ten years and it still doesn’t sit well with me. Granted, I don’t particularly care about these bandits, I think it’s just a visceral reaction,”

Gaige wasn’t on the same page, “I cut off my own arm, I don’t know what you guys are on about, this is GREAT!” she walked over to a different arm and started poking it with some scrap metal, “Anatomy is SO. COOL.”

“That is disturbing / I can see the ligaments / Do you have to, Gaige?”

“What? You don’t think this is cool?” she turned back to her project, ducking another flying limb, “All of this stuff is what makes us go!” she looked at Zer0, “Okay, maybe not you, but you know what I mean! The intricacy of the humanoid species’ biology is insane! Robotics and mechanics aren’t and may NEVER be on the same level!”

“Gross, Gaige,”

Gaige rolled her eyes, “Whatever, you guys are just lame,”

Krieg and Salvador managed to blow up and rip apart every living thing in this area; when they had finished, they walked over to the over four very proud of themselves.

Maya looked at Krieg; he was absolutely covered in blood and a few bits of organs. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, "Krieg, for the love of everything Holy, do you _have_ to coat yourself in the blood of your enemies?"

"BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOOOOOD!" was the only thing Krieg responded with, making Maya frown just the tiniest bit. After she got bit by the bullymong, she assumed Krieg cleaned himself up at some point because he didn't have that rotten flesh smell all over him when she went to get him later. Then again, when she got to him, he was still killing bullymongs so maybe he had just sweat off the stink. 

"Okay, well, keep the blood to yourself," 

"Mmmmmm OKAY,"

Captain Flynt came over a loudspeaker system, "Captain Flynt here, again asking if anyone's seen my CL4P-TP unit. Little bastard escaped a few months back. I've had to use Heaton as my backup torture doll." A loud scream followed, and Flynt sounded sad, "Just ain't the same,"

The team registered that this was prerecorded, "At the sound of Heaton screaming, it will be two-thirty,"

"WHY?! OH, GOD WHYYYY?!"

"See you again at two-thirty-five!"

"Dude, why is Flynt such a psychopath?" Gaige asked, then immediately turned to Krieg, "No offense,"

Krieg just shrugged in response and a chunk of liver fell from its spot on his shoulder. He watched it on the ground as if it was gonna just up and start dancing.

"There's no telling why, except maybe that we're on Pandora. When I was on Athenas, I never really met anyone psychopathic except for Brother Sophis."

The Vault Hunters walked towards the next area of Flynt's maze-like town, "A few of you have asked why I keep playing these pre-recorded messages on a loop. Well, I've got a great answer for ya: a red hot poker to the eye! Ain't that right, Claptrap?"

"IT WAS JUST A QUESTION MISTER FLYNT!" Claptrap's voice came over the speakers.

"That's Captain Flynt to you,"

Maya shook her head as they walked past a New-U station, promptly before the next occupancy. There was a crudely made metal semi-circle sheltering some chests and vending machines. Then stairs led up to their next point, Gaige and Axton ran ahead, with Zer0 disappearing.

"We'll catch you up to you, then," Maya called after the group. Salvador decided he wanted to be a part of that group, as well. Something about more enemies. She shrugged, it's not like she couldn't handle herself, especially with Krieg, "Alright, big guy, just you and me taking out the baddies,"

Krieg nodded vehemently and was almost bouncing in excitement. Right before they got to the stairs, a few regular marauders and a few killer marauders emerged from the shack. He began laughing, "MEEEEAAAAAT!!!"

Krieg ran up the steps, throwing his axe into the chest of a regular marauder, yanked it free, and in the same swing he landed into the face of another. 

Maya phaselocked one of the killers, "This will hurt," the foe inside Maya's grasp began to scream when he was slowly set on fire. She smiled slightly, strengthening her grip and pulled two more men into the flaming ball of pain.

Krieg was a bit jealous until he saw a badass approach him, "Somebody delivered a FEAST!" he laughed and ran with his axe at his side, then jumped up and onto the badass marauder, planting the axe into his neck.

The marauder screamed, making Krieg laugh even more, "I LOOKED INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS AND I ATE IT ALL!" 

Maya's phaselock expired and the men exploded into flaming pieces, showering all around Krieg, "Oops, sorry about that, buddy,"

"Do not apologize for the hot meat!"

Walking towards where Krieg stood over the badass, she noticed a chest to her left, "Ooh, a chest, How about that?" Maya elbowed Krieg's side, then came back with blood where she had touched him, "Oh, right," she turned her arm to look at her elbow, "You're still covered in blood,"

"Hehehehe," When Krieg was quieter, Maya decided, he was much more terrifying. They stepped towards the chest and popped it open. A shotgun and a pistol laid there.

"Hey, one for each of us. That's nice," Maya picked up the pistol, examining it and moving it back and forth between her hands, "I like it. Jakobs is always easy to like," Krieg was just staring at the shotgun as if he didn't know what to do with it. She looked at him carefully for a moment, "You, uh... you good there?"

He quickly turned his gaze to her then back to the shotgun, sadly stating, "The gun is too big," 

"The gun is too _big_?" Maya picked up the weapon, "It's no bigger than the one you got last time," she held it out to him.

"Too big!"

She thought for a moment, "Like... you can't fit it in your storage deck?" he nodded, "Well, what do you _have_ in there, it's not like there's been an abundance of weapons or anything out here," 

Krieg handed her his echo device and she opened the backpack. It was full of bullymong fur.

"Oh, come on. What do you need this much bullymong fur for? It's taking up 90% of your storage!" 

He looked down at his feet, looking nervous for the first time Maya had ever seen. Then he pointed his finger at her chest.

"It's for me?" Maya stared incredulously at the bloody man standing before her. Krieg nodded, "What for?"

"Prevent the death of the blue," he muttered, kicking some snow around.

Maya couldn't decide what to do in that moment, but she managed to speak, "Well, I'm not going anywhere just yet, okay?" Krieg continued to stare at the ground. She grabbed his chin, pulling it upwards to face her, " _O_ _kay?_ "

His brown eye widened at her, staring deeply into her own stormy ones. Maya still held Krieg's echo, and she wished she wasn't. She wanted to hug the man, even if he was covered in blood. Some of it was dry at this point, right?

She looked back down at the echo and the 10 bullymong furs inside, she chuckled, "What if we just take out one of them?" Krieg didn't seem happy, but he begrudgingly nodded his head anyway. Maya smiled, "No, worries, we can always find more,"

He decided he could live with that.

~~~~~

An hour or so later, all of the Vault Hunters managed to kill off the bandit in Flynt's base and they had made it to the final area where they saw Claptrap's ship. 

Claptrap himself had made it and was currently punching in some code to open the gate to where they assumed Flynt resided. The bot fell off the platform and yelped, but he picked himself back up and faced what looked like it might've been the bandit leader's home.

"Come on out, Flynt! Your CL4P-TP unit has returned!" Flames began erupting from vents in the ground.

"Oh, come on," Gaige whined, "I hate fire, man, it fucks up my calibration,"

"Then, we shall have to kill him quickly," Zer0 pulled out his katana and dropped into a fighting stance.

Captain Flynt was sitting on a throne of sorts on the tallest part of the structure, "It's our new torture doll, boys. Let's turn up the heat!" he was built like a nomad but had Hyperion yellow all over his shirt and pants. Flynt's melee weapon of choice was an anchor, it looked like, and he carried a shotgun. Flynt jumped down off of his throne.

"Oh, SPHINCTERS! I'm so sorry, Captain Flynt, sir. Please, don't burn me again!" Claptrap stopped his dancing and wheeled around, trying to avoid the incoming fire.

"Here we go," Maya mumbled to herself. She phaselocked three bandits that had come out of some hiding place in the walls and pulled out her new pistol and began shooting at other psychos that were charging her. 

One of Maya's bullets had nearly missed Axton's face, "Watch it!" but when he looked, he realized that bullet had killed a bandit right behind him, "Oh," Axton shook his head and threw down his turret, "Sic' em!" 

The turret's constant firing matched that of Sal's vicious assault rifle incursion, he was laughing non-stop as he took out at least a dozen bandits.

His stream of bullets clipped Gaige's metal arm, "HEY! I _just_ fixed that!" she looked down at her metal limb and noted that it wasn't too bad, but was still pissed nonetheless. She pulled up DT and went to work, "Number five ALIVE!"

DT sliced around Krieg's area and the robot got a death glare from the main psycho. The robot obliged Krieg's unspoken request to 'fuck off' and he continued to rip bandits to shreds. 

Maybe 10 minutes later, every bandit was dead except for Flynt. The man had managed to avoid the rage of all six Vault Hunters up until now. Currently, all six had surrounded the man and were shooting at him, not giving him any time to speak or fight or anything. They were tired and they just wanted to get to Sanctuary.

Captain Flynt finally dropped to the ground and Claptrap decided he needed to ruin the moment, "BOOYAH! You're the most fearsome warrior this glacier has ever seen, pals!"

"Thanks... Claptrap." Maya put her pistol away began massaging her head. Using her power that much was frowned upon without proper training and she knew it. She could feel the headache already.

"You're welcome! Alright, now we've just gotta get to my ship." Claptrap strolled to the back of the structure where Flynt had come from. The Vault Hunters followed slowly. 

At the very back, there was a keypad that the bot messed around with for a bit before the shuttered door opened up to reveal chests, money, and some guns. In the very back, they saw Claptraps ship. 

Dear, Lord were they ready to get off this glacier and get to Sanctuary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of your patience, guys! Work is taking up a lot of time and in a few weeks I'll be in school as well, so we shall see what kind of updating patterns I might have.
> 
> Hope you like it!


End file.
